


Esaam Asala

by Maybethings



Series: May Be Promptin' [128]
Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Afterlife, Drabble, F/M, Fluff, Original Character Death(s), Prompt Fic, Qunlat, Resolved Sexual Tension, conlang
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-06
Updated: 2012-05-06
Packaged: 2017-11-04 22:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/398886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Promptfic. Strosca, "to have and to hold," happy end</p>
            </blockquote>





	Esaam Asala

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sword-Bearer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/364521) by [Maybethings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maybethings/pseuds/Maybethings). 



Taarbas wakes, expecting to find blood on her hands, but instead it is brilliant yellow petals that trickle from her palms, golden as the sun above. Her shoulders are weighed down with nothing more than the simple underrobes she wore as viddathari. The air is warm with the heat of a summer's evening, the grass soft below her head, the sky more blue than long-lost Seheron's. It's like a dream; a dream she has lost the right to have.

He's waiting for her across the field, an ocean of golden blooms eddying around his calves. His hair is loose, his skin unmarked. Their eyes meet. An ache long-forgotten tears through her breast. She thinks it's the sword inside her regaining its true form, a heart that's only now re-remembering how to beat. She shakes her head slowly, even as she walks to his side.

"I'm dead," Taarbas whispers, as the reality sinks in.

"Yes," Sten concurs. "Many darkspawn preceded you."

"But— _but_ —!" Suddenly she's not Taarbas, or even viddathari; she's just _Natia Brosca_ all over again, a duster of barely twenty years with nothing to her name but two blunt daggers and a lifetime's worth of fear. "I thought the Qunari didn't believe in an afterlife."

"I did not believe that I would find _kadan_ among the _bas._ Yet you were still there to be found."

The words give her a chill in the quiet heat. Taarbas has been deemed _kadan_ by many others before—in life she is, _was_ , steadfast and trustworthy. But she has been wanting to hear it said one particular way, in one particular voice, and its owner has been lost to her for fifteen years. Her voice quavers as she speaks. "Say that again."

"What, _kadan_?"

"That." She pulls him down close and kisses his forehead, as she's been longing to do since she saw him. He smells of tea and incense and salt: of home, and a heart. Suddenly she notices he is unarmed.

" _Kadan, ben'dar Asala-asit?_ " she asks.

" _Esaam toh._ " He nuzzles the side of her neck lightly; Sten knows _exactly_ where his soul is.

The taarbas and her sten embrace for many moments, each not what they once were, yet undiminished for all that. Then they link their swordborn hands, calloused fingers across scarred knuckles, and walk out into the gentle, endless sunshine. Together.

**Author's Note:**

> Esaam asala = in/within the soul


End file.
